What a champ...I am so amazed by this baby! We went out to dinner the last two nights in a row and Julian was a perfect gentlebabyman. He socialized with us, the waiter/waitress, and our fellow diners, then played with his toys in a highchair while we ate. Last night he got tired and started to fuss at the end of dinner, so I held him in my arms and he fell asleep for about 15 minutes, then woke up refreshed for dessert and more socializing. When we got home around 9:00pm (half an hour after his usual bedtime) he went right to sleep. Very impressive!

Now on to our next impressive feat....I have known for a while that Julian squirms and gets very
restless at night when he has to pee, rolling all over the bed and even making moaning sounds. He does this for 5-10 minutes until I pop a breast in his mouth (which helps him relax enough to pee in his diaper, I guess), or else until he lets go on his own after he can't hold it anymore. I thought he was hungry when he did squirmed around like that, but I've discovered 99% of the time it's not about hunger at all...he just has to pee.

I've tried taking him potty before, but he always wakes up FURIOUS with me for disturbing him. SCREAM-crying on his potty. Not fun at all for either one of us, plus he would get so mad that he wouldn't pee at all, so I stopped trying.

Last night I fell asleep while nursing him down when we got home, and woke up around
midnight. I washed my face, brushed my teeth and came back to bed just in time for Julian to do his sleeping "pee squirm". Since I was fully awake, I was able to plot out a strategy ;-)

I put his potty *on* the bed (so we didn't have to go anywhere
entailing me carrying him), took off his diaper quickly and gently, and held him
securely on his potty while simultaneously slipping a boob into his
mouth, which kept him comforted and semi-sleeping.

He took a HUGE pee, and only made a few little protests as I put a new
diaper on him before nursing him back to sleep. I wouldn't even call it
nursing...he was fast asleep again within a minute or two.

When he woke up in the morning his diaper was dry! Then he did another
ENORMOUS pee in his potty, and a poop too, just to impress me, I guess!

I am so thrilled! I've been really bummed about him waking up in a
soaking wet huge pee-filled diaper every morning, and felt bad about his pee
squirming too. Hopefully this technique will keep him from being
disturbed too much when we do nighttime pees on the potty.

One other thing that I discovered...his diapers are normally so soaking
wet in the morning that I assumed he was peeing nonstop all night long.
But really I think he only pees 1-2 times. It's just that those two
times are MASSIVE pees. If I can catch them, we might be able to have
dry nights, which will be so much better for his little baby butt. It's so icky for him to sleep in those big smelly pee-filled diapers. I swear they weigh a few *pounds* when I take them off him in the morning. Yuck.

Well, we'll see what happens tonight. I don't want to get too excited, but that was a nice little breakthrough.

Little Man has also been showing the first signs of separation anxiety...when I put him down at daycare this morning to put his milk in the fridge he started crying his eyes out, so I cuddled him and kissed him and he was better.

Then when I left the room, I realized that I had forgotten to fill out his daily form, so I came back in and he was crying his eyes out again. I cuddled him a little bit and Leela distracted him while I left. Poor baby, it just breaks my heart to leave him when he's crying for me. Ugh.

Dan told me that Julian cried the other day when I left the room, so it definitely seems to be separation anxiety on the way. I know that it's useful...I just finished reading how it evolved in babies to keep them from getting too far away from their caregivers as they start getting mobile. But still...Julian is so much fun lately, I don't really relish being away from him to begin with, but to have him cry his eyes out on top of it...not fun. Oh well, it will be over soon enough. Time flies.

It seems like we have a lot of friends with Baby #2 on the way. One of the women in my Moms Group is pregnant with #2. I was wondering who would be the first to go! It was an accident, but she and her husband are happy about it. A bit nervous, but happy.

I had a tentative mental plan to start trying for #2 next February when Julian is a year old. But that's right around the corner! Geez, I'm still enjoying being able to have a glass of wine with my dinner, and wearing normal clothes. I feel like I *just* got back into my clothes! But then again, I don't really want to be having babies at 40. I'd prefer to wait a bit more in between, but it's a trade-off. I don't know, I guess we'll just see what happens when the time comes.